Changes help Seattle Mariners’ Luke Raley return to form
While the Seattle Mariners’ offense normally is off to a sluggish begin, there’s one hitter whose manufacturing thus far has been very encouraging, particularly when you think about how his 2025 marketing campaign went.
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Outfielder Luke Raley enters Wednesday with a .296 batting common, .356 on-base proportion and .556 slugging proportion for a .911 OPS, and his three residence runs in 16 video games are already only one shy of what number of he had in 73 video games throughout an injury-hampered season final yr.
The 31-year-old Raley has appeared much more just like the participant who had 22 residence runs and a .783 OPS in 2024 for the Mariners than the one who struggled to keep on the sector – and produced when he was – in 2025. But as Mariners insider Shannon Drayer of Seattle Sports defined, Raley has made some modifications slightly than making an attempt to recreate what made him profitable two seasons in the past.
“Every player hits that mark where you get into that point in your late 20s where things are a little bit different for you,” Drayer mentioned Tuesday throughout The Dugout on Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy. “In the offseason, I realized that he was probably training too hard with the weights and he needed more flexibility. So he got into the yoga and now the first thing that he does before he does anything else, it is the stretching, it is the yoga, it’s taking care of the body that way before he hits the weights. And I think that that’s helping him feel better out on the field a little bit.”
There additionally appears to be a shift in mentality for Raley, who might be laborious on himself at occasions.
“You don’t see many in baseball attack the game the way that he does. And that’s how he has to play, it’s how he does play,” Drayer mentioned. “It’s how he acquired to that ball within the ninth inning (for a catch on the wall within the ninth inning Monday against the Astros). It’s how he can hit a ball over a fence and beat out a bunt and get to first base and scare everybody who’s in the way in which within the course of. I feel it is completely improbable. That’s who he’s.
“I’ve talked a little bit about it, but with Luke – I mean, they all care, they all care a lot. But if you had to have a care put, he would be at the absolute top of it, almost sometimes to his detriment. For him, I think he is probably the one that it is toughest to put a bad game behind him. He wears it more when things aren’t going right.”
Raley is making an effort to enable himself extra enjoyable when on the sector, Drayer mentioned.
“He’s also said that – going back to his passion for the game and really holding on to things – (he) needs to have more fun out there, and he’s trying to make that commitment and trying to be aware of that. And he, of course, became a first-time dad last year, and that is helping things too a little bit with him.”
That is not stopping the 6-foot-3, 235-pound Raley from nonetheless being the hard-working participant his Mariners teammates are acquainted with.
“It’s just the player that he is, and he helps the team not only in the results that he puts up on the field, but he’s one of those energy guys,” Drayer mentioned. “You don’t usually think the energy guy is going to be one of the biggest guys on the field, but in this case, it is. And the teammates feed off of that stuff, much like they do off of some of the things that Josh Naylor does.”
catch The Dugouta weekly hour of Mariners discuss and interviews, at 1 pm every Tuesday in the course of the baseball season on Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy. Hear the total dialog with Drayer on this week’s podcast version of The Dugout at this link or within the participant beneath.
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